Archive for the ‘J.W.A.’ tag

When Steve McQueen set out to make Le Mans, his ultimate racing film, he stipulated that it would show the cars naturally and not use sped-up film. To do that, he needed camera cars capable of speeds of up to 150 MPH; a couple Porsches would do the trick as well as a Gulf-liveried Ford GT40, and it is that GT40 that will go up for auction at RM’s Monterey sale in August.

Even without its use as a camera car, the GT40, serial number P/1074, still boasts an impressive history. J.W.A. originally built it as a lightweight Mirage production racing coupe (serial number M1/10003) in January 1968 after the official end of the GT40 program, fitting it with a Weslake-headed 289 V-8 that would later increase in size to 302 cubic inches. In May of 1967 it debuted at Spa, where Jackie Ickx and Dr. Dick Thompson drove it to a first-place finish. That year, it would compete at Le Mans (DNF), Brands Hatch (DNF), Karlskoga (first), Skarpnack (second), and Montlhery (first) before heading back to J.W.A. in the off-season for conversion into a GT40. FIA rules had effectively outlawed the Mirage after the 1967 season, but the GT40 remained homologated for 1968, thus J.W.A.’s rationale for the conversion.

It was at this time that J.W.A. incorporated carbon-fiber reinforcements in the bodywork – believed to be one of the first uses of carbon fiber in automotive fabrication. Campaigned as GT40 P/1074 in 1968 alongside its newly built sister car, P/1075 (the car that would go on to win Le Mans twice), P/1074 was not as successful as in its previous incarnation, but still competed at Le Mans, managed to set the lap record at Le Mans with Ickx again at the wheel, and to place first at Monza and second at Watkins Glen with David Hobbs and Paul Hawkins driving.

Relegated to back-up duty in 1969, J.W.A. sold P/1074 in May 1970 to McQueen’s Solar Productions. Other GT40s (P/1027 and P/1018) had served as camera cars for John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix, but while those cars simply ran sans removable bodywork and with cameras mounted directly to their chassis (due to MGM renting the cars from Ford), Solar Productions decided to make some more radical alterations to P/1074, including chopping off the entire roof and reworking the rear body panels to blend into the altered bodywork. Solar then installed a gyroscopically stabilized and compressed air-powered rotating camera-mount turret on the rear deck and a manually rotated camera mount on the passenger door, taped the doors shut, and began filming. Camera car driver Jonathan Williams reportedly described the handling of the modified P/1074 as diabolical, given the additional chassis flex from the missing top and altered aerodynamics, so he turned over camera car driving duties to Dutch driving school instructor Rob Slotemaker. Though Solar Productions didn’t enter P/1074 in the 1970 Le Mans race, as it did with its Porsche 908 camera car, it did run the GT40 up and down pit road at Le Mans to capture footage of the packed grandstands and it did use P/1074 for gathering much of the 150 MPH footage that McQueen wanted for the film.

According to the World Registry of Cobras and GT40s, after Solar completed filming late in 1970, P/1074 passed through a couple of hands before Sir Anthony Bamford of Staffordshire, England, bought it and had it reconstructed as a GT40 using a new Abbey Panels roof structure, early GT40 doors and standard production rear bodywork. It passed through a number of other hands in the United Kingdom and United States during the 1980s and 1990s before Bernie Carl of Washington, D.C., bought it in 2000 and commissioned Harley Clutxton of Grand Touring Cars in Scottsdale to restore it.

Given its history, both as a competition car and as a camera car for a legendary Steve McQueen racing film, it’s no surprise that RM Auctions has chosen not to publicly release a pre-auction estimate for P/1074, making it available only upon request from interested buyers.

GT40 P/1059. Photos by Jamey Price, courtesy RM Auctions

While they were at it, RM Auctions decided to add a second GT40 to its Monterey sale. While P/1059 doesn’t have nearly as extensive a history as P/1074, it remains an impressive car in its own right. Originally built as a production road coupe in late 1966 with a Weber-carbureted 289 and delivered to Ford in Dearborn, the World Registry of Cobras and GT40s notes that it’s one of 20 GT40s used for Ford’s Promotion and Disposal Program and one of six cars sent to Shelby American for one of its promotional programs. Ed Shoenherr of Detroit’s Stark Hickey Ford bought it in 1969 and only three private owners have had it since then (restaurateur Herb Wetanson, Dr. Jack Frost, and current owner Patrick Ryan), accumulating just 4,749 miles. According to RM Auctions, that makes it one of, if not the, lowest-mileage GT40s in existence. RM has given it a pre-auction estimate of $2.3 million to $2.7 million.

RM’s Monterey sale will take place August 17-18 at the Portola Hotel & Spa and Monterey Conference Center. For more information, visit RMAuctions.com.